Every adult who’s ever been responsible for surviving this life knows it too well — chores are not fun. There are so many things you could do instead of washing that pile of dishes or folding the laundry, especially when you know that these tasks will be here day after day for the rest of your life. If you have kids, we have good news for you — sharing chores with them will actually help them be more successful later in life!
“By making them do chores — taking out the garbage, doing their own laundry — they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life,” author and former dean of freshmen at Stanford University Julie Lythcott-Haims told Tech Insider. Lychcott-Haims spoke about this at her TED Talk that you can see below. “If kids aren’t doing the dishes, it means someone else is doing that for them,” she said during the talk. “And so they’re absolved of not only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us must contribute for the betterment of the whole.”
She stands behind her belief that children who grow up doing chores become more successful people with better work ethics in the future. It makes sense and it gives you an excuse to do something else after dinner as your kid does the dishes — it’s a true win-win.
